Echo
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: Ever seen SGA's "Trio"? This is like that, but with Claire, Matt and Foggy. (Part of the "Cut Again" series previously posted to AO3 and tumblr)


Tink. The sound of metal groaning, sharp and urgent, cut through the ringing in Matt's ears. Tink tink. Tink tink tink tink. His face was pressed into rotted wooden debris from the floor above. The slimy planks smelling like gray water and mold. He shifted slightly, splintered wood falling sideways off his back. The room echoed. Concrete. Below ground. Tink tink tink tink tink tink.

He forced himself onto his back, groaning as his body protested the movement. Pain in his side and the underside of his arm, he noted. There were several long, burning scratches in both areas, complemented by a rapidly swelling bruise down his ribs. He must have scraped it along the side of the ground they'd fallen through. Tink, tink, ta-tink, ta-tink, ta-tink. The difficulty with moving suggested he'd actually managed to crack one of the ribs, but all things considered, he figured he'd gotten off pretty easy. He could work with a cracked rib.

He rose to a kneeling position and focused on his surroundings. He was crouched in a wide, hollow dip in a long cement corridor, almost longer than his 'radar' sense was able to detect. It branched off about thirty yards behind him. Metal tracks. A dry, stale smell, with a hint of rubber and mechanical lubricant. The same air circulated infinitely through an ancient system of vent ducts and fans… Ta-tink, ta-tink, ta-tink, ta-tink. The air pressure was changing. Fuck.

There were two other heartbeats in the tunnel with him. One, Claire's, was on the narrow maintenance platform a few feet up and to his right. She was moving slightly, he could hear her shift in the debris scattered around them. Thankfully, most of it had been soft, rotted wood- the concrete through the tunnel ceiling had disintegrated to a more sandy consistency. A definite problem for the trains, he realized.

Speaking of trains, there was a rushing sound in the distance he definitely didn't like. Claire stopped moving. She'd begun to hear it too.

"Matt?" She asked. Her voice was deliberate, calm, coherent. She'd been trained well. Not necessarily for this, maybe, but trained none the less. "Foggy?"

A low moan came from the direction of the other heartbeat. Foggy, until now, had been still. At the sound of Claire's voice, he seemed to startle awake. Matt could smell blood on him.

"Foggy, stay still." He ordered. The rushing sound was closer, there was a garbled mix of speech now he was catching from the hundreds of people packed inside the subway cars.

"…matt?" Foggy's voice was guarded, weak sounding. Matt navigated the debris over to his friend. Claire hadn't moved from her position on the maintenance platform, which worried him somewhat, but he didn't have time to question it.

"I'm here, Foggy. You, me and Claire, we're in a subway tunnel. Fell through the roof. We're working on figuring some things out right now." He didn't elaborate. The train was coming closer. Claire took notice.

"Foggy, we're under a kind of deadline. I'm going to ask you some questions. I need you to answer them truthfully." There was a slight edge to her voice now, but Matt couldn't tell if it was simply pressure from the idea that they were in the path of an oncoming train, or pain from injuries she hadn't made apparent. He should have demanded her status immediately. The train was getting closer to the junction behind them.

"S-sure thing." Foggy said. He heard Claire let out a slow breath.

"Does anywhere hurt?" She asked. There was a pause.

"Foggy?" Matt demanded. Claire was keeping her cool a little better than he was. He was impressed.

"Yeah, yeah. Uuh, like the top part of my shoulder? All over that. Top part of my back."

"Okay, is there anywhere you can't move or feel?" She asked. It was a rough assessment- they didn't exactly have time to be precise.

"I don't think so."

"Good. Matt, without moving him, I need you to feel along his spine. You're looking for anything that's sticking out differently or feels particularly swollen. Foggy, you say if anything Matt does hurts." Any other situation, Matt would have refused, citing a lack of medical training. But instead, he forced his hands under Foggy's back. He moved as quickly and deliberately as he could, uncertain of what he was looking for but trusting that Claire would have been more exact if there was anything he wouldn't necessarily be able to feel. TA-TINK, TA-TINK, TA-TINK. The train was right up on the junction now.

"Shit, SHIT!" Foggy shouted. Tensing underneath Matt. "MATT THERE'S A TRAIN! SHIT MATT THERE'S A TRAIN BEHIND YOU, MATT!" Before Matt had finished his assessment, Foggy wrenched Matt's hands out from under him. He twisted, clearly no longer feeling his own injuries, and wrestled one leg under Matt's body. With the sudden adrenalin it was enough to force him off Foggy and hard into the concrete side of the track well.

Pain exploded along Matt's side as he fell between the track and the side of the track well- certain death if the train rolled over them. Claire's raised but still amazingly calm voice carried over the panic, calling for them to calm down, to sit tight, that everything would be fine just please stay still. Matt forced the pain and shouting to the back of his mind, throwing himself back over Foggy, forcing his hands underneath the two of them and pinning his friend to the middle of the tracks, covering him with his own body to keep him down and still.

He waited, tensed, as the sound of the train swelled. One second, two seconds, three seconds. An infinite amount of time. Claire stopped yelling. Matt blocked everything out, waited, Foggy's writing body protesting wildly under him while he locked down and waited to be hit by the train.

Instead of the roaring tube of metal shearing over them, however, the sound slowly began to fade. Matt let himself breathe, feeling his left side burning, dulled somewhat by the adrenalin. Foggy quieted finally. The train had taken the other side of the junction.

Matt released his friend tentatively and rolled to the side, tasting blood where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek. "Stay… still." He ordered. His body was demanding oxygen, but he kept his breathing calm and even, trying not to aggravate the pain in his ribs.

"I'm so sorry." He said finally, tiredly, as the weight of what had just happened dawned on him. This hadn't gone as expected. Not in the slightest. They'd been together when he'd heard the sound of the gunshot a few blocks distant. When he'd heard the sound of someone crying out in pain, not dead and clearly in dire need. Claire had insisted on coming. Foggy had just tagged along. The scene had been over, the danger passed.

And then they'd all fallen through the rotted section of warehouse floor on their way to the damn incident.

There was no response from either of them to the apology. Just the sound of heavy breathing echoing in the tunnel as the next train left the distant station.

"You good for a minute?" Matt asked Foggy.

"Yeah." Foggy gasped back. Matt forced himself to move, from the pain and air hunger. He climbed onto the platform with more effort than he wanted to admit, and made his way slowly over Claire's still supine form.

"Where are you hurt?" He asked. The smell of blood on her was stronger than it had been on Foggy.

"You really can't help me, Matt." She said. He'd thought her heart rate had been high just from the exertion of the last few minutes, but that wasn't the case.

"Why, what..?" He asked.

"There's a piece of wood through my side." She said. Shit. "Its deep, Matt. Definitely under the muscle… I can't tell how far." She paused. "You need to go for help." Her voice was calm but her heart rate told the whole story. Training could only take you so far.

Matt could feel his own heart rate rising too. He wanted to argue that he couldn't leave her and Foggy here alone, that it was his fault and he didn't want to put them in more danger. But that was stupid, and he nodded instead- glad there was something he could do, even if it was just getting help. He stood slowly. "There's a blue light probably thirty yards up the platform. There's probably an emergency call station there."

"Yeah." He agreed halfheartedly, sensing out the box mounted into the wall. He turned.

"And Matt?" She said.

"What is it?" He asked.

"I know you won't stay here to be checked out by the medics, but…" She paused. "You're not looking so awesome yourself. Get someone to look you over?" It was phrased as a statement, and he nodded, unsure if he would actually follow the instruction. "Thanks." He took a slow breath, feeling a drop of warm blood trickle down his swollen side.

He made his way toward the call station.


End file.
